Lubuto Library Partners®celebrated the official opening of their second library at the Ngwerere Basic School in Lusaka’s Garden compound on Wednesday, November 10, 2010. Funded by
Dow Jones & Company, this is the first Lubuto library built in partnership with Zambia’s Ministry of Education, who chose Ngwerere School as its host due to its proximity to many street children and vulnerable youth. First Republican President of Zambia, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, was Lubuto’s special guest at the celebration, and was introduced by his former political advisor and member of Lubuto’s Advisory Board, Mark Chona. The Guest of Honor, Deputy Minister of Education, Hon. Crispin Musosha, M.P., was
represented by Ministry of Education Permanent Secretary Andrew Phiri. Member of Parliament for Mandevu, Hon. Jean Kapata also made congratulatory remarks, and the emcee was National Arts Council Chairperson and founding Lubuto Advisory Board member Mulenga Kapwepwe. U.S. Ambassador to Zambia Mark C. Storella was also an honored guest.

The opening activities included story dramatizations and dance performances by Zambian children and youth, and presentations by authors Peggy Chilema and Gankhanani Moyo of local-language books they created during a recent book-making workshop co-sponsored by Lubuto Library Partners and the Zambian Board on Books for Young People. Also, a
congratulatory letter from Ellen Tise, president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions was read by the president of the Zambia Library Association, Francine Makondo.

“The opening of the second Lubuto library is an important milestone, allowing us to expand our outreach to vulnerable children and youth with an excellent collection of books and a range of services that promote self-expression, art, culture and traditional Zambian values,” said
Jane Kinney Meyers, founder and president of Lubuto Library Partners. “It represents the first effort under a formal agreement between Lubuto and the Ministry of Education to work together to actively seek out difficult-to-reach Zambian children and youth to extend high quality educational opportunities to this large and vastly underserved population.

This library would not have been possible without the very generous support of Dow Jones & Company and its employees. Their initial corporate gift of $60,000 for construction was augmented by Dow Jones’ employee book donations and a Dow Jones Foundation grant, together amounting to almost $50,000, which provided the necessary inputs for a complete library, including the collection and staff training. The 4,000 volume collection was selected and cataloged by our volunteers in Washington DC and was shipped free of charge by International Mailing Solutions, with the help of our great friends at National Geographic.